Update on The Book!

I was recently taking care of some legal permission-y, copyright sort of stuff for the upcoming polymer clay book by Cynthia Tinapple. We now have a tentative title and a bit of an idea of what the cover might look like and its starting to feel...real. 

Diamond shaped inside out beads from Claire Maunsell (Sorry folks, these are sold. Aren't they great though?)

One thing I really find exciting is that beyond the 13  featured artists (of which I am one) and their projects there will be work from 125 artists from around the world featured gallery style. Sounds like it will surely appeal to us visual types who like books heavy on pictures!

Live the good life

I believe in the idea of craft as part of economic, spiritual and emotional renewal! You can read about it here and here.

Most good things have been said and now just need to be lived. - Shane Claiborne

Here comes the sun

Sunshine finally. It had been raining here in our part of PA for 24 hrs., give or take. I've not seen rain like that since we spent the summer on Saint Helena, where its location in the Trade Winds make that amount rain reasonable. Here...not so much. It was quite amazing though and we awoke to an explosion of mushrooms in the yard. So my youngest son and I started our day with fungi identification and I decided that this is the best way to start the day, not with fungi necessarily but with "wonder".
Soon afterward, with Samuel tucked into grammar, I checked Polymer Clay Daily only to find my Chrysanthemum rings as one of Cynthia's fall picks. (Could clicking PCD on the toolbar and seeing one of my pieces pop up ever get old...no, no, I doubt it!)
Despite the early morning ramble I got so much finished (school and home and otherwise) and I'm headed to the studio for a bit after dinner. I feel myself...heading in a direction. I finished this piece for New Freedom Fest. Its a pin. It didn't sell (I am secretly please...I like it.)


Here are the other "landscapes" that I've started. Landscapes? Are they? I think they might be. I see them as pins/walls hangings. Maybe pins and wall hangings. Maybe pins you take off and hang on the wall. I've been greatly drawn to NON jewelry work lately, namely landscape paintings and sculpture. The grey ones in the upper left and lower right corners are larger slabs of clay that I cut apart and then reassemble. (The same with the feather textured pieces .)